Harris tweed, the hand-made cloth beloved by the country set, is about to make a comeback on the international fashion stage.

For the last two years Harris tweed has been virtually unavailable to all but one manufacturer making only four styles of men's jackets. However, a new company on the island has reopened supplies to fashion houses around the world.

The Premier Vision fashion show held in Paris last weekend heralded the resumption of trade in the exclusive fabric as a raw material and Harris Tweed Hebrides, the company that is promoting a range of new colours, was inundated with orders for samples from fashion designers and manufacturers in Germany, Japan, France, Italy and London.

'We had interest from more than 200 companies, which is more than anyone can remember for the last 10 years. People from big fashion companies were coming up and saying they thought Harris tweed was dead and they would never be able to get it again so it was a huge relief for them,' said Ian MacKenzie, chief executive of Harris Tweed Hebrides, which started production of the cloth at Shawbost mill at the start of the year.

'Germany is the main market, followed by Italy, France and London. We had more than 20 big companies from each of those countries taking away samples. Most want to make men's jackets but there were a lot interested in fashioning ladieswear such as coats, dresses and hats.

'We also had some big-name shoe people from London who were very interested in using the material for new designs. Our collection has more than a hundred new colours and the level of sample orders taken was way above our expectations.

'It's the first stage in the process and we have to work hard to turn these sample requests into bulk orders but tweed and tartan are in this year and we're off to a flyer. We now have an agent touring interested companies in Japan to secure more bulk orders there.'

Until the Second World War, eight out of 10 people on Lewis and Harris wove tweed for their own needs and sold the surplus, but now there are less than 200 weavers on the islands making a precarious living from the craft.

Donald John Mackay, who became possibly the most famous Harris tweed weaver in the world after he landed a contract to make Nike trainers back in 2004, welcomed the news that Harris Tweed Hebrides had made the cloth more widely available again.

'It's taken all of this year for us to get back to were we where before so it's a great relief that the cloth is back on the market again and those boys being in Paris will have given it a huge boost,' said Mackay, a self-employed weaver who works with his wife Maureen.

'We are depending a lot on Harris Tweed Hebrides and now that they've got this show out of the way they can concentrate on making more colours, which is what we want to do. I'm going to see them about dyes next week.'

One company gained a virtual monopoly over Harris tweed production in 2006 when Yorkshire-based entrepreneur Brian Haggas took over the Kenneth MacKenzie mill which was responsible for 95 per cent of all Harris tweed made on the island.

'We thought this great product had been bastardised over the years and there was no marketing strategy. Basically it had been allowed to drift,' said Howard Pighills, sales director of Harris Tweed Scotland, the sales arm of Kenneth MacKenzie Ltd.

'We took over a run-down business that was losing half a million pounds a year. We decided to take Harris tweed upmarket because we were disillusioned by the fact that it was being sold in the UK in low-price jackets. You could buy Harris tweed jackets for £100 and that's not a great advert for a product that is woven by hand.'